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La Basilique du Sacré Coeur de Montmartre It's been awhile since I visited Montmartre so after seeing the "wall", I went up to the Basilica of Sacré Coeur for a view of the city of Paris. Many years ago I took the stairs to the Basilica but this time around I opted for the easy way up which is by funicular. The fare is similar to the metro. So it's best to buy a carnet of metro tickets if you're staying a few days in Paris.

In front of the Sacré Coeur a crowd of people spilled down the long flight of stairs. Street entertainers were having a field day, in particular, a young man who climbed up the lamp post and played with a soccer ball, oblivious of his precarious position as the crowd cheered him on. Across the horizon Paris lay in a haze. It was a gorgeous day to be outdoors.

Walking through narrow streets I passed cafés buzzing with activity. I thought I'd go down Rue Lepic to the Café des Deux Moulins and try their crême brûlée which is now called Amelie …

I didn't see the elevator at the Abbesses metro stop so I unwittingly went up the stairs which winds up 118 feet (or 200 steps according to Wikipedia). Abbesses is one of the deep stations in the Paris metropolitan system. I had to stop twice on the way up to catch my breath and rest my leg muscles. It was quite a climb! I heard the people behind me panting and moaning. We were definitely in Montmartre, high above the rest of Paris. And I came for a specific reason - to see the "I love you" wall or Le Mur de Je t'aime at Place des Abbesses. I had read an article about it on Valentine's day and I was intrigued. How serendipitous that I had this chance to be in Paris! The wall is just behind the entrance to the metro station.

Le mur is made of blue tile and scrawled across it are over 300 greetings of love in 250 languages. I recognized a few like Iniibig Kita and Te quiero. I did a search to find out about Ljubim te and learned that this is a Slovenian/Serbian gre…